Women left with more regrets af ter a one-night stand

A CASUAL fling may seem seductive at the time but those who get caught up in the moment can find themselves overcome with regret the morning after.

And while both men and women who have flings tended to feel bad later, it was in starkly contrasting ways, researchers have found.

Female lovers were more likely to feel needy or tearful while their male partners just wanted to get away and were more likely to feel irritable.

But women experience their negative emotions more often and more intensely, the study found.

Researchers believe this is because they have a stronger desire to form a nurturing relationship. In men, however, natural selection has led them to be more able to distance themselves so they can move on if they think their partner is not suitable in the long term.

The study said: ‘Men, relative to women, experience the avoidance factor more frequently and more intensely than the neediness factor, and women the reverse.’

For the project, men and women under 30 in Norway, the US, Canada and Brazil were asked to look back on their sexual history.

‘Men on average wanted to leave to a greater degree than be intimate after sex,’ said co-author Professor Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

‘Women gain from having quality rather than quantity. They want the man to stay to a greater extent. This preference applies on a group level and obviously not to everyone.’

The study, published in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences, claims to be the first to show that both sexes feel strong negative emotions after a casual sexual encounter.

Those most likely to feel awful had put a high priority on their short-term relationships and were seen by psychologists as having a ‘fast living’ strategy.

The most common feelings for these men and women were a need to be alone, disgust for one’s partner, irritability, apathy, anger and pity, researchers found.

Lots of short-term flings can even result in feelings of self-loathing, said the study. Participants were asked if they had suffered any or all of 23 negative emotions in the early stages of a relationship.

These included the need to be comforted, a feeling of worthlessness, tearfulness, feeling rejected, shame, guilt, pity, and frustration.

Negative feelings were common in both genders, with 79-84 per cent of men experiencing these emotions while 86-89 per cent of women did.

A significant gender difference was found for the frequency and intensity of the feelings, with women on average reporting higher scores than men.

Intriguingly, the differences were less pronounced among Norwegians.

Dr Kennair said: ‘In Norway, sex for the sake of sex is more accepted.’

‘Feeling rejected’